After Twenty Years

On a cold, windy night in New York, a policeman making his rounds notices a man standing quietly in the darkened doorway of a hardware store, an unlit cigar in his mouth. The stranger explains that he is simply waiting to keep an appointment made exactly twenty years earlier, at the very spot where a restaurant called "Big Joe" Brady's once stood before it was torn down. He tells the policeman that, two decades ago that same night, he had dinner there with his closest friend, Jimmy Wells, before leaving New York the next morning to seek his fortune out West. The two young men, as close as brothers, had promised each other that no matter where life took them or how much their circumstances changed, they would return to this exact spot twenty years later to meet again.

The policeman, mildly skeptical of such a long-distance promise, asks whether the man has kept in touch with his old friend since then. The man admits that although they exchanged letters for a year or two, they eventually lost contact, as he became consumed with building his career and fortune in the West. Still, he expresses complete confidence that Jimmy will show up if he is alive, insisting that Jimmy was always the truest, most dependable friend he ever had. As he waits, the light from his struck match briefly reveals a pale, square-jawed face, sharp eyes, a small scar near one eyebrow, and an expensive diamond pin — small but telling details that the policeman notices before continuing on his beat.

Some time later, as drizzle begins to fall and the wind picks up, a tall man in a long overcoat finally approaches and greets the waiting man warmly as "Bob." The two old friends embrace happily, catching up as they walk arm in arm, with Bob eagerly recounting the story of his success and adventures out West. As they walk beneath the bright lights of a drugstore window, the tall man suddenly stops in his tracks — and calmly reveals that he is not Jimmy Wells after all, remarking that twenty years is certainly enough time to change even a man's nose from a fine "Roman" shape into a "pug." Before Bob can fully process this, the man hands him over to a plain-clothes officer waiting nearby, revealing that Bob has, in fact, been under arrest for the past several minutes.

It is then explained that Chicago's police had wired ahead, suspecting that a wanted criminal nicknamed "Silky" Bob might be hiding out in New York — and the stranger hands Bob a small folded note before they head to the station. In it, Bob discovers the truth: the note is from Jimmy Wells himself, who reveals that he was, in fact, the very policeman on the beat who first spoke to Bob outside the hardware store earlier that night. Recognising his old friend's face the moment Bob struck his match to light his cigar, Jimmy realised Bob matched the description of the wanted man from Chicago — but found he simply could not bring himself to arrest his old friend with his own hands, and so quietly arranged for a plain-clothes detective to complete the arrest in his place.